Apple was forced to remove many of its iOS devices from the German online …

Apple will be able to sell its iPad 2 with 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4 via its online store in Germany after all, thanks to a temporary extension courtesy of a German court. As noted by the BBC, an appeals court lifted the ban on certain iOS devices just after Apple was forced to remove them from its German online store earlier on Friday. Still, not all is going Apple's way, as a Mannheim Regional Court also ruled on Friday that Apple had infringed upon a patent owned by Motorola that allows devices to sync e-mail across devices wirelessly, which may spell out changes for iCloud users in Germany.

The 3G injunction

Motorola won a German injunction against Apple in December over a patent on a "Method for Performing a Countdown Function During a Mobile-Originated Transfer for a Packet Radio System." In short, it meant that any Apple products that use 3G data would be affected, and Apple's removal of the 3G-equipped iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4 on Friday were a result of the enforcement of the December decision.

So why wasn't the iPhone 4S included in this enforcement? As pointed out by FOSS Patents, the iPhone 4S uses a Qualcomm-made baseband chip that the previous 3G-equipped Apple devices do not have. It's likely that Motorola and Qualcomm's cross-licensing agreement extends to Apple in the case of the iPhone 4S, which is why that device remains unaffected by this particular injunction.

Shortly after the enforcement took place on Friday morning, Apple told All Things D that it planned to add the removed products back to its online store very soon. "Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago," a spokesperson said. "All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple’s online store in Germany shortly."

Indeed, almost immediately after that statement was published, the appeals court issued a temporary suspension of the injunction "after Apple made a new license payment offer."

iCloud injunction

Separately, the Mannheim Regional Court ruled on Friday that Apple had also infringed upon a different patent owned by Motorola that targets the use of iCloud to push and sync e-mail across multiple devices. The injunction is permanent—once it becomes time to start enforcing the ruling, those who use iCloud to sync their e-mail may be forced to look at other, non-push options.

(Some publications are implying that these two events—the removal of Apple's 3G devices from the online store and the iCloud injunction—are related, but they are not. They both just happened to occur on the same day from the same court.)

Moto delivering a beating

Apple has not been lucky lately in its legal battles against Motorola, and Moto isn't letting up anytime soon. The manufacturer has also pointed several lawsuits in Apple's direction in the US, with the most recent one targeting the iPhone 4S and iCloud. This is in addition to an ongoing US lawsuit from 2010 that makes patent claims against Apple's older iOS hardware, MobileMe, and the App Store.

When combined with the actions in Germany, it's clear that Moto is going after Apple with the same tenacity that Apple is using against its other competitors like Samsung and HTC. When will the fighting ever end? If Apple plans to stay true to the sentiments of its founder when it comes to fighting Android, the answer to that question is likely to be "not anytime soon."

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui